


Mrs. Graham

by Zoara



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:46:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4423676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoara/pseuds/Zoara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brief character analyses of Will Graham's mother and fiancée.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mrs. Graham

One of the first things Will Graham ever prayed was that his mother would come home. Twice a year, at his birthday in June and Thanksgiving in November, Will set the table, making sure to add an extra place just for her. His father did nothing to disabuse him of the notion that someday soon, any day now, Maman would walk in the front door. Oh mon fils, my darling William, I’m so sorry I was gone for so long!

Yes sir, Hélène Foucher-Graham was a real piece of work. . .

A wealthy, pale, Cajun Catholic heiress, sick of having to listen to her Papa, Ellie (as Tom Graham came to call her) gave her virginity to him on the night of her 16th birthday. She became pregnant, and they eloped to Shreveport, where for $75 they were wed at the Clerk of Court.

At first, Ellie was overjoyed, keeping busy taking care of the house while Tom fixed boat motors for a living. All the while, as her stomach swelled Ellie read books - her bible, books of baby names, and mass-market paperback romances. For hours, days, months on end, Ellie immersed herself in the world of Regency England - a world of glamor and decadence, balls and concerts; wealthy young men of the aristocracy, so bored with life and always above the present company. They stood to the side, aloof, whispering gossip and ridiculing the others. So jaded, so complicated. . . so unlike her husband.

Tom Graham was a simple man. Hardworking and hard-headed, he was a high school dropout and an alcoholic, a failure in every way - but he loved her. Goddammit, he loved that woman.

It came out of nowhere, the sudden accumulation of flowers and gifts - clothes, perfume - but Tom ignored it, at first. It was nothing, just a mindless little emotional affair. Though married and heavily pregnant, Ellie was first and foremost still a silly teenage girl. It would pass.

He was at the pier fishing when her water broke on Thursday, June 19, 1975. He got a sense almost at the exact moment, dropped his rod carelessly into the water, and took off running toward his truck. He got to the trailer right about the same time the midwife did.

Then, exiled to the front porch to leave the women to their business, he drank a 12-pack of Heineken and prayed for a son. William Thomas Graham was born at 7:36 PM. With his sweet, pink scrunched up face, he looked like a tiny doll in Ellie’s arms. With a thatch of dark brown hair and cornflower-blue eyes, he looked remarkably like Tom. The instant Tom held his son in his arms, the baby had all of his love, which was just as well - Ellie left as soon as she was able to get out of bed.

On July 27, Tom returned home from the boatyard to find baby Will shrieking, a Dear John letter taped to the refrigerator:

Cher Thomas,  
I am sorry to leave you this way. It is no secret to you that I have been unhappy for quite some time. I have found someone who does make me happy - I can not live this way any longer. I am not ready to be a mother, and I am no longer your wife.

Signed,

Hélène Foucher

Well, Tom thought to himself. At least I have Will. Tom Graham might not have a high school diploma, but he was no fool: you couldn’t well take a Cajun belle from a goddamned plantation and set her down in the middle of a blue-collar, white trash trailer park. He tried to ignore his rage at Ellie’s (excuse him, Hélène’s) tendency to pepper her sentences with French terms and endearments that in the end amounted to a steaming pile of horse shit.

Tom burned the letter and scrubbed his hands with lye soap before touching Will again. No need for an innocent baby to be tainted by a woman’s wickedness. In addition to the letter, Tom took all photographs of his wife along with Hélène’s bible - a black leatherbound book with gilt pages, an heirloom - and tossed it into the fire.  
. . . . .

Will tugged at the collar of his shirt, neck itching as beads of sweat accumulated on his skin. Of all things, the idea of marriage terrified him. After the example of his own parents, he never imagined that he would ever be married, or would have ever wanted to at all. Yet here he was, sitting down with his fiancee in their living room in Marathon, Florida, deciding all the minute details of their wedding.

“Should we have red or yellow roses? Oh, we’ll have yellow roses with red tips!” Molly Foster smiled, her hazel eyes shining, the dimple in her chin prominent. She was so pleased with the decision that she took Will’s face in her hands and kissed him passionately. Will felt a familiar flutter in his stomach.

Molly still amazed him after nearly three years. Tall, blonde, sweet Molly. When they met she had been 28 years old, a young widow with a 9-year-old son. Her car broke down on the road just outside the trailer park Will moved to after leaving Virginia. Will walked down to see what he could do, fixed a leaky hose, and the rest was history.

Molly was a city slicker from the Big Apple, and in the rural Florida glades she might as well have been on Mars. Will loved her tenacity, her bluntness, her irreverence. He loved how casually she used profanity, if only in his company (‘Why are you so sad, baby? God knows I love you, but you need to buck the fuck up!’)

Will loved her passion. She cried at the sight of a cat run over in the road. When they made love she moaned as if she were giving birth - or being born. He loved her. He loved her son, Walter, who was every bit as tough and sensitive as his mother. 

Here he was, a reclusive, solitary man his entire life, and he was about to get a wife and son in a matter of weeks…

“Will? Baby, did you hear me?”

“Hmm?” Will started and rubbed his eyes as Molly shifted away from him. “What did you say?”

“I said, why don’t we skip all this nonsense about the church, and just go to Boot Key?”

“Are you sure? I thought your parents were dead-set on St. Columba.”

“Are we getting married, or are they? Come on, Will, when have I ever listened to them?”

Never, as far as I can tell, Will thought. They especially hadn’t been pleased when she had married a semi-homeless (they barely considered a trailer as a ‘home’) drifter who worked odd jobs fixing car and boat motors. Wealthy Episcopalians, Molly’s father was a corporate lawyer, her mother a frequent volunteer at soup kitchens and in Christian outreach. Will, a nominal Baptist who hadn’t darkened the door of a church in 25 years, was a heathen who was only going to lead Molly ‘down a dark, dark road with no way back.’

“I see your point. I just hate to be in your shoes when you have to tell them.”

“Who says I have to tell them? Know what, let’s just go over to the county courthouse tomorrow! Fuck the roses, that ceremonial BS. . . and you know what else? My parents and their uppity self-righteousness. Fuck ‘em all.”

“Wow, Molly, you seem so pleased. You must have had to endure quite an oppressive environment growing up.”

“Damn right. But that’s not the point. I know you have a tendency to digress, but focus, Will: are we going to do this or not?”

Will smiled, slipping a hand under Molly’s shirt to caress her stomach. (One day, perhaps, she would bear him a son or daughter of his own.) He kissed her, turning his head aside to whisper in her ear:

“As you wish, Mrs. Graham.”

**Author's Note:**

> Generally, I would wait until after the character is introduced in the show before attempting to portray them in fanfiction. This is Molly Foster-Graham as I hope she will be: a fun and sarcastic woman to help Will lighten up a little.


End file.
